


A Sterile White Calm

by foxinschlox



Series: MikoTotsu Week 2015 [2]
Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 10:28:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5413400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxinschlox/pseuds/foxinschlox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for MikoTotsu Week 2015 ♔ Angst : “because the red king found it within himself to love something to the point of undoing.”<br/>⌊ (( my (short) take on the classic timeline split where totsuka survives his gunshot wound. ))</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sterile White Calm

“evening dosages received for : floors b… c…. d”

the helper robot’s voice chimes. it lifts the tray of medicine vials onto the desk. apart from the mechanical sound of its movement, the hospital’s 4th floor hall is silent.

“thank you”

the nurse’s dismissal cues it to roll away. she sets to work making sure each vial was taken; focused so that the figure shoving through the double doors passes without attention - at first. suddenly the weight of his footsteps, the searing effect of his presence causes her to stutter out,  
“sir? excuse me, but do you have a visitor’s permit?”

a gut feeling warns her he doesn’t. perhaps it’s the smoke. or the disheveled mane of hair that sizzles wild with sparks from the ends. leaking, radiating something deadly.  
a sickness unlike any she’s ever witnessed.

no other light, but the embers in his eyes. he’d pauses before one of the room doors. shoulders fallen, a hand laid on the knob.

“please let me know if you need anything,” she calls, “there are extra blankets and pillows in the cabinet - if you’re staying.”

an unholy red glares back, before slipping away into room 403. the nurse’s hand still hovers the emergency call button. but can’t.

there is a sickness consuming him alive.

…

the flowers have all been taken away. weeks ago they covered every conceivable surface of the room.

“they’re beautiful! but they’ll just go to waste here” he smiled for everyone, “if it’s not too much trouble, keep them watered and healthy for when i come home!”

mikoto suoh is only a husk of himself, come to haunt over the edge of the bed in the middle of the night. watches to make sure each shallow breath follows the last.until he can’t stand anymore. he sinks down into the chair pulled close enough to lay his head down on the threadbare hospital sheets. a spray of pink carnations and baby’s breath would do more good in his place. among the iv tubes, the tangles of cord, a pair of upturned wrists pale as the bedclothes, as the sterile white tile walls.

hands find the strength to move, and to vaguely touch. on contact they relieve the tension in king’s shoulders he’s all crumpled up into.  
those hands are weaker than ever before. but they _always_  rise to the occasion.

“ah, i know what these are~”

totsuka’s voice twines into the strings & muscle of his heart, the way his fingers twine with the two long, stray hairs fallen across king’s forehead.

“but this is different”  
totsuka’s palm moves down to graze king’s unshaven cheek. it’s a shame he has to feel him like this.

“you didn’t scare the nurses in the lobby did you?”

mikoto sighs out his lungs and is slow to open his eyes as totsuka caresses over every part of his face. it’s a routine check.

“i meant with breaking in here after visitor hours,”

totsuka’s breathy giggle isn’t enough. the red king aches for his real laughter.

“not with the stubble. the stubble is so nice.”

mikoto can’t see his frown when his thumb passes lightly under each eye. the deepened lines and beds of dark circles tell stories of sleepless nights. the fresh scar on the left side reads “broken glass” and totsuka wants so badly to ask why. but he won’t ruin this calm space.

with its blank walls and medical equipment, the dark world out beyond the window - it may not be comforting to look at, but he’s happy to share this room with king. totsuka strokes through the tangle of red hair next.

“i’ve missed you. even when i sleep i miss you… i want to be with you”

confessions spill in near-whispers from the confines of a hospital bed. it’s all totsuka can do. having brushed so close with death, his filter is as broken as his body.

“why?”  
the red king’s murmur is sharp-edged.

“because when i was born, twenty two years ago, it was to be with you. and when i’m not - i might as well be watching … everything from the window of a train,”  
pain-drugged thoughts swim in his head and drip out of his mouth all disconnected. silky light brown hair touches mikoto’s forehead when he moves closer.

“it blurs, and ices over. always moving. until i arrive where you are, and it’s home. everything is still, and warm, and safe. and you give me my purpose.”

_they pulled a bullet out of you. and i might as well ’ve put it there myself.  
_ mikoto is deaf to all but this. and shudders, terrified, until his vassal strokes it out of him. he’s spent years letting totsuka lull him into disconnect. it feels so good like reality isn’t.

_don’t forgive me, brat. not this time._

he strangles the bedclothes in his grip. totsuka tatara needs his legs for quick escapes. to carry that fragile body from danger; the kind that will chase mikoto and those he keeps near him for as long as he lives…

for as long as he  **lives**.

_you want me to protect you? protect everyone? there’s one permanent way i can figure.  
_ mikoto’s stare glazes over instead of telling him these things. fixated on the blinking face of the pulse monitor.

once a king starts to think about dying, some say he’s already halfway there. and the way he’d go out of this world has been constant on his mind. somewhere out of the way. he’ll leave totsuka and the rest of their clan, their ill-purposed family, behind to live. not staring up from hospital beds. or wooden boxes.

“ ’m going”

but he doesn’t move.

“and where are you going, my king”

“away”

“ah, i see.”  
  
with all the strength left to him he tries pushing the covers from his upper half.  
  
“well. you might have to carry me out. my legs don’t really want to work yet.”

and it seemed that no one knew if they ever would again. the bullet paralyzed from the waist down.

“it’s about time too. i’d go back to eating weeds before hospital food”

“totsuka.”

_listen to me, brat._

there’s a suffocating tightness in the red king’s throat.  
he’s got to be the mikoto that everyone fears; that has no one, in the end. he cannot be shackled down or backed into a comfortable corner by a tamer’s hand. ‘cause he can sense the bad company he lures: the red on their teeth and the glow of their eyes - a color he can’t describe yet. they’re melted into the shadows at totsuka’s back as he fawns, bleeding, over his king. waiting to finish the job the bullet couldn’t quite.

they are too elusive to drag out and kill. there is not enough time. and they will not relent.

merely because the red king found it within himself to love something to the point of undoing. he understands now: if he can’t scare it away from danger, there is no choice but to run.

“when i go i won’t call for you. i won’t come back. get it?”

it went still between them.

totsuka, who is always so full of replies and ways around everything, has nothing left then. he’s could feel what king had come to say since he entered the room.

eyes turn down to his lap and his hands smooth out the wrinkles in the blanket there. as if there was something he could do to make it softer.

_i am made for you  
_ _and you are made for me_

he doesn’t know what to do with himself otherwise. and it tears mikoto to pieces to watch him form a painful little smile and rest back into the pillow. it’s alright to lie and to lie by omission. it’s okay. there is no happiness to be found in realizing the way things are.

but -

_i understand. i know. you want to find some distant place to let it fall._

_i’m sorry._

_but stay. i’ll fix this. i’ll be careful from now on. it’s my fault, it’s mine._

_i love you. i’m sorry._

_please carry me with you if you have to go. i’m so selfish…_

_you’re going home to see your flowers. and i’m going to protect you._

they’ve never needed words. they lie like dead men side by side, lost in the clearer language of each others’ eyes and touch.

**_stay._ **

only morning light will tell if the red king makes good on his promise to disappear without a trace.

or if those frail hands can keep their grip on the chain  
coiled around his neck.


End file.
